Sevens said:Kilsin said:Sevens said:dorotea said:>not allow soloing to be a viable alternative with fast out of combat regeneration. It still wouldn't make soloing impossible, but, it would be much less viable and attractive than seeking out groups for progression.<
Predictably, I strongly disagree.
Soloing will be hard enough with a fairly small amount of content that is intended to be soloable. When we do want to solo (too many afks to group, feeling antisocial that day, whatever reason) there shouldn't be yet another obstacle put in deliberately to discourage soloing. Pull a mob, wait 5 minutes, pull a mob? I know that isn't what you said but I may not be exaggerating too much. You might as well turn all the solo content into group content instead of making it *that* painful to solo - and a purely group game will fail. Even the groupies (which is almost all of us or we wouldn't be here) need an outlet that isn't excruciatingly boring.
I agree, ALL solo content should be turned into group content. There are a million and one solofest mmos out there.
That would pretty much destroy our player base and any chance of revenue to support the game for years to come, so luckily we won't be going with that option ;)
If EQ had been made "group only" the game would have never made it this far, there have to be things to do solo for any game to survive as not everyone wants to group 100% of the time especially in huge social worlds, players are human and it's not like you would like to not be able to walk out your front door in the morning without a full group of six friends, modern games just take it way to far and end up being RPGs in an MMO world, we have no intention of doing that, so to exaggerate like that helps no one, Sevens and only serves to start arguments.But EQ didnt have solo content...the PLAYERS made the solo content by figuring out how to play their toon to the best of their ability and doing what the devs didnt think they could. If you have ever read any of my other post you will see that I am NOT against solo content but am against content designed to be solo. Huge difference.
Exactly and we won't be either man, which we have said many times if players solo trash mobs and other things that don;t drop anything of too high of a value then we won't mind at all but we won't be creating huge solo dungeons or caves in our group based game.
There has to be solo content though and some pockets in the game where people can solo depending on class/skill and while we won;t be designing the game specifically for that type of gameplay we will intentionally leave small areas unbalanced to solo in where we feel it is needed.
I think your wording threw me, so sorry for the misunderstanding my friend. :)
Kilsin said:Sevens said:Kilsin said:Sevens said:dorotea said:>not allow soloing to be a viable alternative with fast out of combat regeneration. It still wouldn't make soloing impossible, but, it would be much less viable and attractive than seeking out groups for progression.<
Predictably, I strongly disagree.
Soloing will be hard enough with a fairly small amount of content that is intended to be soloable. When we do want to solo (too many afks to group, feeling antisocial that day, whatever reason) there shouldn't be yet another obstacle put in deliberately to discourage soloing. Pull a mob, wait 5 minutes, pull a mob? I know that isn't what you said but I may not be exaggerating too much. You might as well turn all the solo content into group content instead of making it *that* painful to solo - and a purely group game will fail. Even the groupies (which is almost all of us or we wouldn't be here) need an outlet that isn't excruciatingly boring.
I agree, ALL solo content should be turned into group content. There are a million and one solofest mmos out there.
That would pretty much destroy our player base and any chance of revenue to support the game for years to come, so luckily we won't be going with that option ;)
If EQ had been made "group only" the game would have never made it this far, there have to be things to do solo for any game to survive as not everyone wants to group 100% of the time especially in huge social worlds, players are human and it's not like you would like to not be able to walk out your front door in the morning without a full group of six friends, modern games just take it way to far and end up being RPGs in an MMO world, we have no intention of doing that, so to exaggerate like that helps no one, Sevens and only serves to start arguments.But EQ didnt have solo content...the PLAYERS made the solo content by figuring out how to play their toon to the best of their ability and doing what the devs didnt think they could. If you have ever read any of my other post you will see that I am NOT against solo content but am against content designed to be solo. Huge difference.
Exactly and we won't be either man, which we have said many times if players solo trash mobs and other things that don;t drop anything of too high of a value then we won't mind at all but we won't be creating huge solo dungeons or caves in our group based game.
There has to be solo content though and some pockets in the game where people can solo depending on class/skill and while we won;t be designing the game specifically for that type of gameplay we will intentionally leave small areas unbalanced to solo in where we feel it is needed.I think your wording threw me, so sorry for the misunderstanding my friend. :)
Ok kilsin, forgive me for a sec to get you to type it again.
1. Your very aware of past mmo's where we level up normally. We had the choice back in EQ, and Vangard to solo to get xp. we also had the ability to group to gain more xp and explore more of the world.
- Will we be able to solo for xp, in small undesigned areas, when our group or shortage of time is limited. Such as 1am in Austrialia and nobody is online but kilsin, and he wishes to go kill for a quarter of a level tonight??
You know exactly what i mean. Is this ok? or will it be solo, mainly forced into a group to gain xp.
Crazzie said:Kilsin said:Sevens said:Kilsin said:Sevens said:dorotea said:>not allow soloing to be a viable alternative with fast out of combat regeneration. It still wouldn't make soloing impossible, but, it would be much less viable and attractive than seeking out groups for progression.<
Predictably, I strongly disagree.
Soloing will be hard enough with a fairly small amount of content that is intended to be soloable. When we do want to solo (too many afks to group, feeling antisocial that day, whatever reason) there shouldn't be yet another obstacle put in deliberately to discourage soloing. Pull a mob, wait 5 minutes, pull a mob? I know that isn't what you said but I may not be exaggerating too much. You might as well turn all the solo content into group content instead of making it *that* painful to solo - and a purely group game will fail. Even the groupies (which is almost all of us or we wouldn't be here) need an outlet that isn't excruciatingly boring.
I agree, ALL solo content should be turned into group content. There are a million and one solofest mmos out there.
That would pretty much destroy our player base and any chance of revenue to support the game for years to come, so luckily we won't be going with that option ;)
If EQ had been made "group only" the game would have never made it this far, there have to be things to do solo for any game to survive as not everyone wants to group 100% of the time especially in huge social worlds, players are human and it's not like you would like to not be able to walk out your front door in the morning without a full group of six friends, modern games just take it way to far and end up being RPGs in an MMO world, we have no intention of doing that, so to exaggerate like that helps no one, Sevens and only serves to start arguments.But EQ didnt have solo content...the PLAYERS made the solo content by figuring out how to play their toon to the best of their ability and doing what the devs didnt think they could. If you have ever read any of my other post you will see that I am NOT against solo content but am against content designed to be solo. Huge difference.
Exactly and we won't be either man, which we have said many times if players solo trash mobs and other things that don;t drop anything of too high of a value then we won't mind at all but we won't be creating huge solo dungeons or caves in our group based game.
There has to be solo content though and some pockets in the game where people can solo depending on class/skill and while we won;t be designing the game specifically for that type of gameplay we will intentionally leave small areas unbalanced to solo in where we feel it is needed.I think your wording threw me, so sorry for the misunderstanding my friend. :)
Ok kilsin, forgive me for a sec to get you to type it again.
1. Your very aware of past mmo's where we level up normally. We had the choice back in EQ, and Vangard to solo to get xp. we also had the ability to group to gain more xp and explore more of the world.
- Will we be able to solo for xp, in small undesigned areas, when our group or shortage of time is limited. Such as 1am in Austrialia and nobody is online but kilsin, and he wishes to go kill for a quarter of a level tonight??
You know exactly what i mean. Is this ok? or will it be solo, mainly forced into a group to gain xp.
Yes, that is ok and the best way to look at it is how it was handled in EQ, VG and other similar games, so expect a similar experience with soloing in our game world, which we will continue to tweak in testing until we feel we get the right balance.
Kilsin said:Sevens said:Kilsin said:Sevens said:dorotea said:>not allow soloing to be a viable alternative with fast out of combat regeneration. It still wouldn't make soloing impossible, but, it would be much less viable and attractive than seeking out groups for progression.<
Predictably, I strongly disagree.
Soloing will be hard enough with a fairly small amount of content that is intended to be soloable. When we do want to solo (too many afks to group, feeling antisocial that day, whatever reason) there shouldn't be yet another obstacle put in deliberately to discourage soloing. Pull a mob, wait 5 minutes, pull a mob? I know that isn't what you said but I may not be exaggerating too much. You might as well turn all the solo content into group content instead of making it *that* painful to solo - and a purely group game will fail. Even the groupies (which is almost all of us or we wouldn't be here) need an outlet that isn't excruciatingly boring.
I agree, ALL solo content should be turned into group content. There are a million and one solofest mmos out there.
That would pretty much destroy our player base and any chance of revenue to support the game for years to come, so luckily we won't be going with that option ;)
If EQ had been made "group only" the game would have never made it this far, there have to be things to do solo for any game to survive as not everyone wants to group 100% of the time especially in huge social worlds, players are human and it's not like you would like to not be able to walk out your front door in the morning without a full group of six friends, modern games just take it way to far and end up being RPGs in an MMO world, we have no intention of doing that, so to exaggerate like that helps no one, Sevens and only serves to start arguments.But EQ didnt have solo content...the PLAYERS made the solo content by figuring out how to play their toon to the best of their ability and doing what the devs didnt think they could. If you have ever read any of my other post you will see that I am NOT against solo content but am against content designed to be solo. Huge difference.
Exactly and we won't be either man, which we have said many times if players solo trash mobs and other things that don;t drop anything of too high of a value then we won't mind at all but we won't be creating huge solo dungeons or caves in our group based game.
There has to be solo content though and some pockets in the game where people can solo depending on class/skill and while we won;t be designing the game specifically for that type of gameplay we will intentionally leave small areas unbalanced to solo in where we feel it is needed.I think your wording threw me, so sorry for the misunderstanding my friend. :)
Its all good my friend
I may come off as an ass but Im not really, well I am but its all in love for the game
I dont mind out door areas with low mob traffic that people can solo at, as long as the mobs in the area are the same toughness as all the other mobs in that area, in EQ2 you had mobs designed for group content then mobs desinged for solo players....hated that with a passion
>If EQ had been made "group only" the game would have never made it this far, there have to be things to do solo for any game to survive as not everyone wants to group 100% of the time especially in huge social worlds, players are human and it's not like you would like to not be able to walk out your front door in the morning without a full group of six friends, modern games just take it way to far and end up being RPGs in an MMO world, we have no intention of doing that, so to exaggerate like that helps no one, Sevens and only serves to start arguments.<
This is *precisely* it, thank you.
Those of us dedicated to the concept that a pure group game is not a good idea have at least two basic guiding considerations.
(1) Most of us will want to go solo occasionally even if we mostly group. The game should provide an outlet.
(2) There are many people that will play Pantheon that do NOT want to group a lot or focus on the social aspects of the game and they will help the rest of us enormously. Their money will support the game and their characters will help the world seem more active and lived in. Even an almost pure solo player may well chat a lot in the world or zone chat channels, craft and harvest, join guilds etc. I am not envisioning antisocial hermits, just people that would rather explore and fight mobs on their own most of the time. They aren't *bad* people - I have been married to one of them for almost 50 years. Someone that groups when necessary but always feels pressure in a group and simply enjoys being solo more.
Why would such a person play Pantheon and perhaps even pledge (and I know some that have)? Look at some of the NON social focuses of VR. To have a game where exploring is important. To have a game where you aren't led around by the hand from quest hub to quest hub. To have a game with major sandbox elements where you do more than follow the same quest path from level one to maximum level each character. To have a detailed and rewarding crafting and harvesting system. To have a challenging game where you can't get to maximum level in a few days. And more and more. Why wouldn't someone fed up with "modern" MMOs be excited by this game even if it didn't even ALLOW grouping?
Sevens said:Kilsin said:Sevens said:Kilsin said:Sevens said:dorotea said:>not allow soloing to be a viable alternative with fast out of combat regeneration. It still wouldn't make soloing impossible, but, it would be much less viable and attractive than seeking out groups for progression.<
Predictably, I strongly disagree.
Soloing will be hard enough with a fairly small amount of content that is intended to be soloable. When we do want to solo (too many afks to group, feeling antisocial that day, whatever reason) there shouldn't be yet another obstacle put in deliberately to discourage soloing. Pull a mob, wait 5 minutes, pull a mob? I know that isn't what you said but I may not be exaggerating too much. You might as well turn all the solo content into group content instead of making it *that* painful to solo - and a purely group game will fail. Even the groupies (which is almost all of us or we wouldn't be here) need an outlet that isn't excruciatingly boring.
I agree, ALL solo content should be turned into group content. There are a million and one solofest mmos out there.
That would pretty much destroy our player base and any chance of revenue to support the game for years to come, so luckily we won't be going with that option ;)
If EQ had been made "group only" the game would have never made it this far, there have to be things to do solo for any game to survive as not everyone wants to group 100% of the time especially in huge social worlds, players are human and it's not like you would like to not be able to walk out your front door in the morning without a full group of six friends, modern games just take it way to far and end up being RPGs in an MMO world, we have no intention of doing that, so to exaggerate like that helps no one, Sevens and only serves to start arguments.But EQ didnt have solo content...the PLAYERS made the solo content by figuring out how to play their toon to the best of their ability and doing what the devs didnt think they could. If you have ever read any of my other post you will see that I am NOT against solo content but am against content designed to be solo. Huge difference.
Exactly and we won't be either man, which we have said many times if players solo trash mobs and other things that don;t drop anything of too high of a value then we won't mind at all but we won't be creating huge solo dungeons or caves in our group based game.
There has to be solo content though and some pockets in the game where people can solo depending on class/skill and while we won;t be designing the game specifically for that type of gameplay we will intentionally leave small areas unbalanced to solo in where we feel it is needed.I think your wording threw me, so sorry for the misunderstanding my friend. :)
Its all good my friend
I may come off as an ass but Im not really, well I am but its all in love for the game
I dont mind out door areas with low mob traffic that people can solo at, as long as the mobs in the area are the same toughness as all the other mobs in that area, in EQ2 you had mobs designed for group content then mobs desinged for solo players....hated that with a passion
Haha, I do to man, which is why I have to use so many smiley faces! :D
Yeah, we shouldn;t have anything like that, it will be more about trial and error of what players can and can't solo outdoors but any kind of cave or dungeon would require a group, which we think it best and promotes a healthy socialisation aspect.
For me - an long time eq player who's played most of the classes to a reasonable level (except bard - I never got the hang of bards) the "downtime" of mana regen is what I'm hoping comes back into Pantheon, there's no time in modern MMOs to sit down and chat, to look at the scenery or accidentally open the wrong door and bring a room of mobs on your oom friends.
The regen argument will always divide the populace - and for me basic mana regen with max meditate skill and nothing else should be about 5 mins from oom to full. This encourages solo players to be more efficient in how they use their spells/abilities, for instance back in the day I found it was more effective on my necromancer to use lich sparingly until my hp taps had caught up - so I would kill 2 or three giants and go completely oom then lich it back faster - and then forget and die while getting a drink, but thats another story.
On my warrior if I were solo I would have to kill 2 dark blue mobs and then bind wound and sit until I were full health again - which is why I preferred a group.
With mana regen being slower it also encourages the dps casters to not go "full wad" on every mob but save their big nukes for maybe 1 per mob and subsequently allowing the warrior more chance of keeping aggro.
I think the dev stream appears to have the balance about right, the mana regen also has to match the respawn rates, again taking EQ as an example, these days one person can keep pretty much the entire dead side of lower guk down - on release there were 3-5 groups struggling to keep up with spawns.
I despise the "out of combat" and "in combat" conditions idea for several reasons.
It destroys the potential of support classes those who make you regenerate your health/mana...etc faster. If your mana regenerates fast (out of combat) then who cares if you have a bard in your group? That kind of hardship (life and mana regenerate slow) is why support classes are essential and in my book, the more interdependency in a game the better. If grouping with friend minimizes or eliminiate such hardship then that's what I call a healthy game design.
If you make a character's life/mana regenerate differently out of combat then the whole experience, to me, changes from being a character in a fantasy world into being a character in a game. Oh, so I gain my life/mana slow in combat for balance reasons (or I gain life/mana fast out of combat for QoL reasons). If my character regenerates 5 mana per "Tick" then I want him/her to regenerate 5 mana per tick the whole time. Otherwise it doesn't really matter how much Mana Regeneration you have, everyone regenerates it fast. Which comes to my other reason.... Item Creativity...
If mana/life regenerates fast (or differently) out of combat then those +2 mana regen items would be useless. One of the best thing about EverQuest was those little boosts you can get from items (a few mana regen boost, a few hp regen boost...etc) these kind of items are exciting to seek and wear and if you implement off-combat fast regeneration (like every other MMO) then those said items would make no sense at all from a design prospective.
EQ had "out of combat" regeneration in the form of sitting down long before The Serpent's Spine implemented the scalable % based regen with a timer. It didn't destroy support classes, so I reject that premise outright.
Liav said:EQ had "out of combat" regeneration in the form of sitting down long before The Serpent's Spine implemented the scalable % based regen with a timer. It didn't destroy support classes, so I reject that premise outright.
EQ had meditating for some time. Initially this required you to stare at your spell book with only audio clues to tell you if a Griffin was about to eat you. As much as I personally would love this I'm not that much of a glutton for punishment.
However, sitting to recover Mana was not an out of combat thing. You could sit at any time in battle to regain Mana at a slightly faster rate and this is something they actually showed in the pantheon stream. There were downsides however. Sitting generated a fair amount of agro. If you slow a mob then sit he's coming for you. Additionally anything that walks past will agro a sitting person. From the level one decaying skeleton to the Griffin. I think we all want sitting to meditate in the game. Many of us, including myself do not want an out of combat state that quickly regenerates our health and Mana. We feel it cheapens the game.
Edits for grammar..
grux said:EQ had meditating for some time. Initially this required you to stare at your spell book with only audio clues to tell you if a Griffin was about to eat you. As much as I personally would love this I'm not that much of a glutton for punishment.
However, sitting to recover Mana was not an out of combat thing. You could sit at any time in battle to regain Mana at a slightly faster rate and this is something they actually showed in the pantheon stream. There were downsides however. Sitting generated a fair amount of agro. If you slow a mob then sit he's coming for you. Additionally anything that walks past will agro a sitting person. From the level one decaying skeleton to the Griffin. I think we all want sitting to meditate in the game. Many of us, including myself do not want an out of combat state that quickly regenerates our health and Mana. We feel it cheapens the game.
Edits for grammar..
I'm aware of how EQ worked. My point is that states of accelerated regeneration did exist in 1999 EQ. Sitting while out of combat to regenerate mana and HP was a common practice, both in and outside of combat. While soloing, it was almost exclusively used out of combat.
What people actually seem to be complaining about is the speed of regeneration, not the mechanic itself, in which case it'd be nice to have some clarity. Out of combat regeneration is not an inherently bad mechanic. When it allows you to regenerate your entire HP/mana pool in 30 seconds, it becomes problematic.
Liav said:I'm aware of how EQ worked. My point is that states of accelerated regeneration did exist in 1999 EQ. Sitting while out of combat to regenerate mana and HP was a common practice, both in and outside of combat. While soloing, it was almost exclusively used out of combat.
What people actually seem to be complaining about is the speed of regeneration, not the mechanic itself, in which case it'd be nice to have some clarity. Out of combat regeneration is not an inherently bad mechanic. When it allows you to regenerate your entire HP/mana pool in 30 seconds, it becomes problematic.
It is easy to conflate the two issues as you point out, but I actually think mechanics that differentiate between whether or not you're in combat might actually be worse. I think you are suggesting that the main culprit here is speeding up the regeneration rates and I agree with you there. That said, I think there are some real arguments to be made against out of combat regeration. I wouldn't go so far as to say they're inherently bad, but they may have been the cause of an issue that I'll try and describe.
Regeneration that boosts when out of combat tends to dictate the flow of pulls. You are incentivized to seek out fights of a difficulty that lets you burn down an enemy just as you deplete your resources. Anything less difficult than that is still okay, but not quite as good. Anything more difficult than that is absolutely terrible, since you have to regenerate mid-fight (yuck!). So, you burn down your enemies, then regen a whole bar, then do it again. I find that this causes a narrowing effect on what should be attempted. The optimal exp rate is determined by your strength relative to your enemies' strength.
Regeration that is constant in or out of combat allows a broader range of what should be attempted. You can still find enemies that you can burn down just as you deplete your resources, then regen, and continue on, but the mechanics don't necessarily make that optimal anymore. Perhaps you could find very strong enemies that require stalling tactics and in combat regeneration to kill. Perhaps you could have a puller constantly bringing in a steady flow of weaker enemies and your in-combat regeneration will suffice.
A small issue perhaps, but one that I hadn't thought about until you pointed out the two different parts of the argument, so I thought I would weigh in.
Kilsin said:Sevens said:dorotea said:>not allow soloing to be a viable alternative with fast out of combat regeneration. It still wouldn't make soloing impossible, but, it would be much less viable and attractive than seeking out groups for progression.<
Predictably, I strongly disagree.
Soloing will be hard enough with a fairly small amount of content that is intended to be soloable. When we do want to solo (too many afks to group, feeling antisocial that day, whatever reason) there shouldn't be yet another obstacle put in deliberately to discourage soloing. Pull a mob, wait 5 minutes, pull a mob? I know that isn't what you said but I may not be exaggerating too much. You might as well turn all the solo content into group content instead of making it *that* painful to solo - and a purely group game will fail. Even the groupies (which is almost all of us or we wouldn't be here) need an outlet that isn't excruciatingly boring.
I agree, ALL solo content should be turned into group content. There are a million and one solofest mmos out there.
That would pretty much destroy our player base and any chance of revenue to support the game for years to come, so luckily we won't be going with that option ;)
If EQ had been made "group only" the game would have never made it this far, there have to be things to do solo for any game to survive as not everyone wants to group 100% of the time especially in huge social worlds, players are human and it's not like you would like to not be able to walk out your front door in the morning without a full group of six friends, modern games just take it way to far and end up being RPGs in an MMO world, we have no intention of doing that, so to exaggerate like that helps no one, Sevens and only serves to start arguments.
I think a game that is group / raid only has some real potential, it's just that no one has had the balls to try it yet.
An extremely dangerous gameworld with some survival elements forcing players to band together unlike they have ever had to cooperate before.
A game where everything is against you and only through working together could you even survive let alone progress.
I don't know maybe I'm crazy but I just want a new challenge something that feels almost impossible.
Kiz~
>A game where everything is against you and only through working together could you even survive let alone progress.
I don't know maybe I'm crazy but I just want a new challenge something that feels almost impossible.<
I think there will be a lot of that in Pantheon. My number one push on these forums has been to also have areas where we can go solo in comfort but that shouldn't take away from the challenge of everything else. Many of my posts encouraging solo-friendly areas have emphasized that they should be less prevelant and less rewarding than the group areas, and acknowledged that socialism is a key tenet of Pantheon. Er, social interaction and group play maybe socialism isn't quite the right word.
I'm not fond of any system that alters the function of specific mechanics based on whether you're on an agro list or not. Whether it be slowed movement, inability to heal someone not in your group, inabilty to damage a mob not first engaged by your group, or altering the rate at which health/mana regens. To me its only partially the way it messes with the flow of the game, but much more so how it smacks you in the face to remind you that you're in a contrived machine-based game, rather than interacting with a logical organic world.
There is a big difference between players soloing overworld trash mobs for something to do, and going deep into dungeons and soloing bosses. I don't think killing a wandering lion or boar while waiting for a group or just something to do killing time makes this as a "solo game".
If they made it so you would solo dungeons and bosses with level appropriate gear then I would say it’s a solo game. Pantheon is not like this.
I enjoyed how FFXI used mana-regen as a major utility factor for bards and red mages to the point where it was class (or archetype: support) defining. Without them, it was almost impossible to grind non-stop pulls for any more than a few minutes, and due to the game using XP chains that rewarded bonus XP for kills in rapid succession, mana regen was imperative. I remember sitting around trying to get a group going and there being no bards or red mages available ... sometimes you would fill that last spot with a DPS just to get something going but a group without a mana battery just never felt quite good enough. You could FEEL the difference of not having a battery to the point where it hurt. As much as it sucked waiting around for either of those classes to become available, it felt soooooo rewarding when you had one in your group and you could FEEL the difference of having that mana battery. It changed everything.
The XP chains were something I was always a big fan of in FFXI ... it really added a layer of strategy to the grind. You could pull off T5 chains without a battery but it would generally require a full med afterwards. If you had a battery in your group and managed your mana wisely, you could pull off a bunch of them in a row. Having a good puller was also super important for pulling off max XP chains. If I recall correctly, the most XP you could ever get from a single mob was 300 (or maybe that's the max for the chain including the bonus) and that's assuming you achieve a max chain. Leveling up was a lot of fun in that game. It didn't matter whether you were level 6 or 46, having a good steady pull-speed balance made a huge difference in how effective your group could accumulate XP.
I know a lot of people probably wouldn't like a system like this because downtime is basically viewed as bad ... but I always enjoyed a system that encouraged non-stop action but it had to be pulled if with tactful precision to be effective.. In other words, there were incentives to push the pace, test the limits of your mana, and make dangerous "decisions" with certain spawns you might pull. There was much more meaningful downtime in other areas of the game ... it wasn't something I constantly wanted to deal with while I was trying to grind XP or crawl a dungeon. Don't get me wrong ... there was still downtime in getting around. It's not like the entire game was just non-stop pulling things. But it was possible to do it ... if you had the right group set-up ... (High DPS were super valuable as well for the chains) knew your spawn rotations, managed your mana wisely, and had an experienced puller. Everybody had to pull their weight to make the most of the bonus opportunities and putting together those groups was always a ton of fun because it was truly considered a challenge to consistently pull off great chains. Downtime was indead very meaningful ... it meant you absolutely needed to find a bard or a redmage to be more effective with your time!
Not saying mana regen should be tied into a single class ... more like a "support" role. I think both bards and enchanters should be able to fill the group battery role, and then maybe some of the other classes can do it less effectively. Shamans already appear to have some sort of mana regen buff ... not sure if it will be as effective as bard or enchanters. I would argue that most groups wouldn't form without a tank or healer ... nothing wrong with giving some love to support roles. I wouldn't say that have to feel "required" but they should definitely be carved out as a noticeable role. If you don't have one, you'll live, but you'll notice it. The same generally can't be said for the tank or heal archetypes where they truly are required in most cases.
>There is a big difference between players soloing overworld trash mobs for something to do, and going deep into dungeons and soloing bosses.<
And some of the disagreements here may be a matter of terminology rather than people actually wanting different things. When I say the game needs solo content I am 100% referring to world content (trash with some bosses) and never ever thinking of dungeons. Often I am thinking of a brief period when EQ2 made a huge amount of world content far more difficult and there was very little you could solo as you roamed around the world. BAD mistake and the uproar was so strong it only lasted a few months. THAT is the mistake I do not want Pantheon to emulate. I want dungeons that a soloer can handle at-level no more than anyone else here does.